From A Distance
by Gemenied
Summary: Boyd's not alone in the world. A tie-in to "God Willing"


Title: From A Distance

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Except John (who simply doesn't shut up!)

Summary: Boyd's not alone in the world.

A/N: This is a tie-in to the "Kabul"-universe and you probably won't understand it, if you've not read "God Willing". This story here contains spoilers for the other stories from the series. Not sure, it's a good one, but I'm sure glad to have gotten it finished. Many thanks and 'get well soon'-hugs go to my fabulous beta Joodiff!

Enjoy!

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><p><strong>From A Distance<strong>

The day starts out normally enough, apart from being just one of those where the paper cup with his coffee isn't properly closed by the lid and the bag with his laptop and his files and folders, and his coat feel just too heavy for one arm. He's used to it, it happens, no need to lose his temper over it. He's an equanimous man most of the time; such little things don't have much meaning.

Hastening through the throngs of people, equally as intent as he is to get to their workplaces, he doesn't take much time to contemplate his surroundings. His mind is already more or less focused on the to-do-lists on his timetable for the day. They are full. Not a new thing, but fleetingly it occurs to him that he'll need to cut down the hours a little in the future, if doesn't want to work himself into an early grave or into another failed relationship.

The latter proves to be the more worrisome aspect of his situation.

The elevator takes him up to the 15th floor, and while he makes his way along the path between the desks, he relishes the fact that he's graduated to his own office, with windows, no less. It's still no mean feat in this city.

Placing his belongings on the desk, he makes a beeline for the kitchenette and returns with a mug of tea. Old habits die hard and his colleagues know and tease him about this particular one. He keeps patiently explaining that unless they learn to make proper coffee, it's either one of the many chains, of which he easily tires, or it's tea. Tea is the better choice, he believes, as he slowly sips the brew while methodically hanging up his mac, placing folders and files and his laptop neatly around the desk.

He chances a cursory glance out of the window and it takes him several moments to recognise the gaping hole in the skyline that he can see but that seems to be burnt into everybody else's consciousness. At times he feels like he lacks understanding for the emotional rawness people feel around here. After all, at home there've been similar events and other homemade attacks for decades. Still, he guesses, stiff upper lip and all that, maybe. Who knows.

The view makes him uneasy today, though he can't say why. It's just a feeling, ominous as it is. Something is going to happen, or it already has.

It's not a good feeling, but as he sits down and stares at the photographs on his desk, the smile comes unbidden. Picking up the one next to his phone, he carefully and tenderly traces his fingertip over her smiling face. He'll call her later, maybe they can steal some time for lunch together. It would be a highlight of the day before seeing her at home tonight.

Until then, however, his full agenda has not lost any of its tasks, so he settles in to work.

It goes fairly well, the ticks in the finished-boxes increase in number over the next two hours, and he even allows himself the short pleasure of calling her. Lunch is confirmed and teasing is exchanged, making him get down to work with renewed vigour.

Until...well, until his phone rings and the company's receptionist announces the arrival of two official-looking people, government people she whispers as a confused afterthought. When the man and the woman enter his office, he understands her reaction. And the ominous feeling grows by leaps and bounds.

Even before they open their mouths, he recognises them as coming from his homeland. It's the way they hold themselves, the way they act, even the way they are dressed in terms of their uniform suits. These visitors are not local.

And that means he can easily guess to what their visit relates.

And he'd give anything for a double whiskey right now.

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><p>Time passes as he mechanically goes through the tasks on his timetable and to-do-lists, ostentatiously ignoring the small card next to the phone. He doesn't need to read the writing on it. Though he has given it only a cursory glance, the information written on the small cardboard rectangle is burnt into his memory already.<p>

It sits there and smoulders, slowly and carelessly eating away at him like acid.

He avoids thinking, avoids any mental activity out of his professional lines. He is in a numb state and he likes it that way.

Papers, words, phone calls, signatures, he does them all without really noticing what they contain. If anybody asked, he'd probably answer, "My brother has been shot in Kabul."

That's what they said, those two strangers from the embassy.

Don't think about it. Keep working.

The knock on the door is unwelcome, because it interrupts the mindless flow he has got himself into.

It's her, of course. "You know," she says, leaning casually against the door frame, "I would have appreciated it if you'd at least called me, instead of standing me up like that."

She isn't happy, naturally, but for the moment willing to let it slide. Not that he notices. He's too busy doing...well, what really?

She's standing there, looking at him with confusion, and he can see that the flippant remark on her tongue is bitten back as she realises it might be the worst thing to say, really.

"What's happened?" she asks instead, closing the door behind her.

He eyes the clock on his desk, mentally calculates the time difference and gets hopelessly confused. No way he can do it.

Instead he just groans. The double whiskey seems so incredibly tempting.

* * *

><p>The afternoon drags on, despite her support and her reassurances.<p>

There are just so many hours between them.

Already he has given in to the temptation and dialled the number he was given. But the friendly young man on the other end informed him politely that the doctor was unreachable at that time of the night. Sleep is supposedly a rare commodity in the area, and thus he rejected the young man's kind offer to wake the doctor.

The doctor will be informed that he has called and possibly phone back. Or he can call again in about two hours' time.

Two hours. It seems to be a lifetime.

Joanna tried to reassure him before she left to return to her office. She passed him some more tea, kissed him gently and promised him a cocoon he can fall into once he gets home tonight. It doesn't really help.

His superior pokes his head around the door to ask what the officers wanted so early in the morning, but the jesting words die on his lips as well as he sees his expression. It's so terribly tempting to just blurt everything out, but what is he supposed to say?

Saying the words makes them more real, but he can't reconcile himself with the reality of: "My brother has been shot. In Kabul."

He must have said it out loud in any case, for his boss pales accordingly at the implication of the words.

"Officers from the embassy informed me this morning."

"In person?" the boss asks.

He nods. "Special treatment, eh?" he suggests with a snort that doesn't sound remotely funny.

The inevitable follow-up question hangs in the air, so he takes it upon himself to give an answer before the question can be uttered. "Injured. Critically wounded. They didn't know whether it was life-threatening."

The boss heaves a deep sigh. "I didn't even know you had a younger brother. Much less one fighting in Afghanistan. I thought there was just your older brother, the policeman in London."

He stares at the mug before him and at the small card next to the phone. "That's the only one I've got."

The men gaze at each other for a minute then, possibly longer. Who knows.

"I didn't know he was in Kabul."

That's the heart of the matter, maybe. What in God's name was his brother doing in this God forsaken war zone? Where young - young! - men die every day? What was a man of 60 doing in damned Afghanistan?

He remembers the last time he had any sign of life from his big brother. That pithy postcard from Australia written in that untidy scrawl, with a few dry remarks on weather, beer and general disposition. It always seemed like an afterthought to something more important, but he's kept it in his desk nonetheless. That postcard from nine, almost ten months ago.

The boss leans onto the desk and talks to him, something reassuring, and though he doesn't understand what is being said, he can catch the drift and nod.

It's ninety minutes, still, before the appointed time that he can put through a call to Kabul and speak to the doctor.

* * *

><p>The line crackles, then the connection is building. While the phone rings on the other side of the world, each ring drives his heart further up into his throat until he almost chokes on it. As much as he wants answers, he'd give anything for nobody to pick up on the other end.<p>

No such luck, of course. The greeting is done with cool and unemotional efficiency. So fast that he catches neither the rank nor name of the soldier. Not that it means anything, he couldn't remember either.

His voice cracks and he has to cough and repeat himself. "My name is... My name is John Boyd. I was given this number by the Home Office, told to speak to a Doctor Foley."

The soldier's voice doesn't become more polite or welcoming as he agrees to make the connection. As the call is routed John almost drops the receiver. His free hand clenches and he wishes he had loosened his tie beforehand.

Peter and he haven't been close since their teenage years, have barely spoken to each other for almost a decade, yet the thought that the cranky bugger he idolised as a child might be on his death bed is like a punch in the gut. The feeling is so overwhelming, drowning out all thought, that he doesn't realise there is a voice on the line.

It is quiet, noticeably tired and it is female.

"Hello?" the woman repeats, and he imagines her voice picks up just a bit of impatience. But that's probably just association, because that's how Peter would react.

John coughs. "I'm sorry, Madam, but I'd like to speak to a Doctor Foley."

"I am Doctor Foley."

That floors him somehow. Of course, he knows that women are serving in Afghanistan too, but somehow he expected a man. In his mind he imagined the treating physician to be one of those military doctors he knows from the television.

"I...erm...the Home Office gave me your name and number. I... I am John Boyd. Peter Boyd's brother," he adds unnecessarily.

The woman must think him a dimwit.

Her reply is short. "I see."

John grimaces, aware that he is quickly losing control over the conversation. It's him who wants the information, and the doctor either can't or doesn't want to engage in extended chitchat. He suspects the latter.

"Doctor," he begins anew, "I'm aware that you're busy and probably need to get back to your patients, but I'm in a bit of a lurch here!" Each word comes out quicker and harsher than the previous one and John cringes at his brusqueness. The similarities to Peter run deep, but he usually tries to avoid this particular habit. He's never liked it to be directed at himself.

"I'm sorry," he finally says on a heavy sigh. "I didn't even know my brother was in Kabul until some people from the embassy dropped by my office this morning and told me Peter's been shot in Afghanistan."

There is a long pause at the other end, before the woman wearily replies, "I understand, Mr. Boyd. It's alright."

John doesn't believe her, but there's no time to pry deeper and it isn't his business either. "Can you tell me anything?"

He can almost feel her nodding. "Peter... he was shot in the back during a crime scene assessment."

"In Kabul?" John interrupts incredulously. "My brother is a bloody detective with the bloody Met in fucking London!"

More than anything the woman seems to be amused by his outburst. There is a smile in her voice as she calmly destroys every notion he had of having any knowledge about his brother.

"Peter _was_ a detective with the Met, Mr. Boyd." The stress on the past tense is very unsubtle. "He was put on garden leave in April last year."

"What?"

"He didn't tell you."

It's not a question. If it were, it would insult their individual intelligence.

"The last time I heard anything from my brother was sometime late summer last year, a postcard from Australia..."

"With very little in terms of useful information, I assume." The surprised silence on his end doesn't seem to faze the woman. "I received one with nine words on it, cold beer and hot sun included."

"He's not much of a communicator, my brother."

This time, Dr. Foley chuckles, releasing some of the tension that seems to be a constant background sound in her voice. It bothers him, the fact that there's a story to tell just beyond his grasp.

"You knew my brother before this?"

The redundancy of the question hits him as soon as the words are out. If she's received postcards...

"You're not his treating physician, are you?" he asks in a sudden Eureka-moment.

"No." Succinct and amused, she doesn't appear very talkative.

"Look, I'm completely at sea here, Dr. Foley..."

"I'm not certain what you expect me to tell you, Mr. Boyd. Peter is alive and doing as well as is to be expected under the circumstances."

It's not what John wants to know, and yet it's why he called in the first place. But there are so many new questions, so many things he doesn't know.

"How did it happen?"

"A crime scene assessment... The situation escalated... He...he was shot in the back."

The words come haltingly, reluctantly, prompting him to ask, "Where you there?"

"Yes." With just this one word the woman conveys so many currents and undercurrents that it leaves him shuddering. Her emotions are high, not surprising given what she must have witnessed. John wouldn't want to change places with her for anything.

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you."

"You love him, don't you?"

The realisation hits him suddenly, though probably much later than it should for an intelligent man. Of course, she does. And, of course, he has just majorly stepped over the proverbial line.

Dr. Foley doesn't answer and John wants to apologize, but she speaks again. "You are a lot more like your brother than either of you'd ever be comfortable admitting to."

"Probably."

"I'll tell him that you called when he wakes up," she says. "Thank you, Mr. Boyd."

And then she's gone. Without a long good-bye, and without answering his question either way. Cagey woman. Very smart too. John would give anything to see her, to know the woman who is sitting somewhere in war-torn Kabul, being the woman to be asked about his brother's condition, the one his brother will be thinking of first when he wakes up.

'Dr. Foley. Female. Close to Peter Boyd.' It's not much to go on, but calling up Google might be a start.

It takes only a few keywords before the name crops up in an old news-item about Peter's unit. Or former unit, as it now seems to be. 'Forensic psychology' comes up, a few book titles too. Reviews by peers. More news items about the Cold Case Unit. A first name.

Grace.

And finally a few pictures - of the unit, from book covers, publicity events.

John stares at a picture that is supposed to be barely a year old. That's...her. For the lack of a better term.

Dr. Grace Foley, respected forensic psychologist, formerly of the Met's Cold Case Unit, temporarily in civilian service with the troops in Kabul. Eminent expert on PTSD.

Older than Peter. Not his usual type.

Not at all Peter's usual type.

But there are a few, very few, pictures of them together, from court sessions and press conferences, even one that's apparently been taken no seven months ago during a scientific presentation Dr. Foley has given. She's not at all his usual type.

But somehow...

If she is, of course. Something she has not confirmed. But not denied either. Smart woman.

That is Peter's type...

Shaking his head, John feels a slight grin creeping up on his face for the first time in hours. That's just so Peter.

Peter, who is lying in a hospital bed in Afghanistan, after being shot in the back.

Whom John is going to see as soon as he can somehow get away, and his brother is back in London. It's about time they told each other a few things about what is going on in their lives. And probably about Grace, and Joanna respectively.

That ought to be an interesting conversation. Very interesting.

Until then... John might go home and share a little bit of calming news, because he somehow just feels that his brother will be alright.

After all, Peter does not only have a brother in a distant land, but somebody very close to him.

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><p>Thank you for reading. Comments would be greatly appreciated.<p> 


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